3 years ago I went to the Singapore Fintech Festival and I was impressed not only with the magnitude of the event (12k+ people!) but also with the pace of change finance was undergoing. This truly eye-opening experience convinced me that there is a massive need for upskilling in digital finance and this was the reason why we decided to launch CFTE.
It goes without saying that I was very excited to come back to the Singapore Fintech Festival last week which was a very fruitful experience for the whole CFTE team. This year, I was very pleased to sign the MOU with The LHoFT – Luxembourg House of Financial Technology to launch the Luxembourg Academy of Digital Finance, where CFTE will provide educational content to upskill professionals in the new era of finance. Once again, big congratulations to the whole LHoFT team on this spectacular launch and we look forward to collaborating on this project.
On the main stage, we saw Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, Calvin Choi CEO of AMTD Group, Noel Quinn, CEO of HSBC and Piyush Gupta CEO of DBS Bank talking about the Future of Banking. It was great to hear leaders being vocal on retraining workforce for them to adapt. We also went to meet with our partner Aye Wee Yap of OCBC Bank and Tan Ching Ching of Ngee Ann Polytechnic with Fred Lai AMTD Group and Patrick Pun. We discussed a pressuring topic about how to nurture talent in a landscape of constant change. We concluded that once you overcome the challenge of shifting people’s mindset to seeing opportunity in each problem, you can truly transform your workforce to innovative thinkers that will push your organisation forward.
CFTE also organised a fantastic event with our partner Paypal on the first day of Singapore Fintech Festival. We discussed the topic of “How AI transforms Compliance” with a great presentation keynote delivered by Victor Ngo from UOB sharing their compliance transformation journey. This was followed by a panel discussion with Charles Day of Onfido and Abhishek Chatterjee from Tookitaki on their startup journey and how they partnered with UOB in this transformation process. Managing compliance is essential and it is a competitive advantage for companies if they can manage the risk well. Regulatory landscape continues to change at a rapid pace, and it will be interesting to observe how AI and new RegTech solutions will continue to meet this challenge. It was also great to observe how the Singaporian regulatory system keeps evolving and at the same time stays at the forefront of education incentives to upskill the workforce in this disruptive landscape.
It was an incredible festival that gathered 70,000+ people from Fintech that discussed the future of finance and its impact on people. We reconnected with our partner in education Ngee Ann University, Singapore Fintech ecosystem and many other experts from all around the world. I and Huy Nguyen Trieu also had a pleasure to be interviewed by Altona Widjaja from our partner bank OCBC as well as La French Tech, where we talked about the journey of CFTE and the impact of technology on financial services.
A special thank you to Sopnendu Mohanty and to his team at Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). I still remember when three years ago I met Sopnendu and shared our project of education at scale in Fintech. It is incredible to observe how CFTE and Fintech as a whole have grown since then. We will continue our effort in promoting education in digital finance people from around the world. Access to good education is paramount and the world is a world full of opportunities to people who are equipped with the right tools.
Lastly, I want to express how inspired I am by what Singapore is doing in preparing their citizens for the future with a forward-thinking and hands-on involvement of the regulation which places them at the forefront of the transformation of the financial system globally. Their education initiatives in upskilling the workforce is a model that many countries start to replicate. We are very honoured to be able to work in such a progressive environment and feel very energised to further help the Singaporean model scale in other parts of the world.
A big thank you to the organisers and speakers who made this Festival such an extraordinary event. We are looking forward to seeing how Fintech will transform in 2020 and what lessons we will learn at the next Singapore Fintech Festival.
Tram Anh Nguyen
Co-Founder of CFTE
CFTE team at the Singapore Fintech Festival.
Co-Founders: Huy Nguyen Trieu and Tram Anh Nguyen with David Hardoon from MAS and Celine le Cotonnec from AXA Singapore.
CFTE Co-Founders with Gergely Fábián from the Budapest Institute of Banking.
With Jacqueline Loh from MAS (left) and Janet Young from UOB and Chia Hock Lai, President SFA (right).
CFTE Co-Founders singing the MOU with Nasir Zubairi and Marc de Bourcy from LHoFT.
CFTE Co-Founders with Sopnendu Mohanty from MAS (left), Richard Teng from ADGM (middle) and at the UK Fintech Pavillon where we spoke about the Fintech50 report (right).
CFTE team at the Cyberport stand – our partner.
CFTE Alumni meetup in Singapore.
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